When our lilacs bloom in late May, pale yellow butterflies with black stripes arrive to feed on their nectar. These are tiger swallowtails. These exquisite butterflies have a broad black band along the edge of their forewings bordered with yellow dots. They also have small red spots and “tails” at the base of their hindwings.…

  Old war wound Holding the perimeter on my health is a lot like holding the perimeter on my lawn. If I want to keep my lawn from being swallowed up by the surrounding forest, I need to maintain it. With the right tools. I happen to enjoy this type of physical, outdoor, labor. Taking…

  Figuring out a balance between your material and emotional life will be highlighted under this week’s full moon, July 3.  On the one hand, you may feel the pressure to produce, perform or provide. While on the other, the emotional terrain of Cancer season doesn’t always bend to what the world wants from you.…

  The red, white and blue ribbons flutter behind the young girl as she skips along the parade route. Her hair glistens in the sunshine and she laughs with joy. She holds a thin stick, not quite a baton, with wrapping paper ribbon attached with a bow, way too much glue and curled with a…

  I was digging through some attic containers a few months ago when I came across a small black box with a familiar imprint on the outside. I knew I recognized the design, but my memory couldn’t place it. I opened up the box and pulled out some packaging before my eyes latched onto the…

  In the shallow margins of many lakes and ponds in June and July, you may spot male sunfish guarding their nests. The sunfishes (family Centrarchidae) comprise many well-known species — including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, rock bass, and black crappie — but the most visible nest guarders in early summer are the pumpkinseed, bluegill,…

  How is your garden growing? As gardeners we never seem to be satisfied with the way our flowers and veggies look. I think we are too hard on ourselves! Mother Nature as well as critters alter our plans and give us results that don’t always make us happy. But most of what we plant…

  I’m sure you can all relate to the experience of driving in your car , where your thoughts are a thousand miles away and far from the present moment. Then something sudden or unexpected happens on the road — someone hits the brakes in front of you, or maybe you didn’t see the lights…

  By Olivia Q. Pintair/VTDigger Vermont youths age 18 and under will have access to free food again this summer through the Summer Food Service Program, a federally funded, state-administered program that began in 1968 and served hundreds of thousands of meals throughout the state last summer. The Vermont Agency of Education, which announced the continuation of…

We skied in a wedge, poles wrapped around our waists with the basket ends looped into the straps. You had to suck your stomach in to make it work, and then the poles would settle onto your hips and your hands would be free to do all the work. And so we slipped the ruts…

One of my college roommates called me up to tell me that he died recently. He’s a bit of a jokester, so I laughed off his initial statement. But then I sensed an air of forlorn seriousness in his voice.  It turns out he wasn’t kidding.  I’ve known “Phil” for 35 years, and if I…

  If you take a walk through a thick, broadleaf forest on a cool summer morning, you might recognize the cascading, metallic song of a thrush called a veery. It is an ethereal sound that echoes through the understory, like the ring of a haunted cell phone. You might even see a veery, with its…

  By Katy Savage After suddenly closing last winter, Baja Burrito is coming back to Kilington. Owner and chef Thomas Bartlett is reopening the restaurant June 21 at the former Taco X building at 2841 Killington Road.   “I’ve never been open in the summer so we’re going to try to put some summer foods…

  Legislative committee listened, delay implementation until July 2024 By Alden Wicker and Emma Cotton/VTDigger In May, a group of builders and architects took a somewhat unusual step: They asked Vermont lawmakers and state government officials to increase regulation and oversight of their own industry.  Requirements created by a new proposed building energy code, they argued,…

  Most Vermont gardeners realize warm-season vegetable crops like peppers, corn, tomatoes, basil and cucumbers aren’t safe in the garden until May 31. Luckily, this saved a lot of vegetables from the frost and freeze damage we had on May 18 around the state. If you did have some warm-season crops planted, they are likely…